The north squad of the Big Horn County Search and Rescue team searched high and low Tuesday night for calls that came in one after the other about two different groups of people stranded in different locations and situations.


The team was first paged at about 5:30 p.m., captain Scott Allred said. They were advised of an elderly couple whose car was stuck in the mud off of 14A near the Medicine Wheel on Road 10. The call came from the Washakie County Sheriff’s Dept., which had received a 911 call from the stranded couple. Allred said the SAR isn’t a towing service, but because it was a 911 call and they could not re-establish communication with the party, they treated it as an emergency.


Allred said 14 members of the north SAR squad assembled and prepared to head up the mountain and begin the search. They examined a map and made an educated guess that the vehicle was stuck on Hunt Mountain Road, a scenic loop off 14A.


The team drove two four-wheel-drive trucks up 14A until they hit the turnoff. Allred said it was a decent road, but snow and rain had turned it into a muddy mess. They found the couple in their four-door sedan around 7 p.m., about 1½ miles south of Hunt Mountain, he said.


The couple in the car, Richard Turjon and his wife, had recently moved to Sheridan from out of state, Allred said. The couple celebrated Richard’s 75th birthday at Bear Lodge and were attempting to take a scenic drive before returning to Sheridan. When the team arrived, Mrs. Turjon broke into tears and hugged every member of the SAR team, Allred said.


The SAR team pushed the vehicle out by hand and escorted the couple back to the highway. They cleared the scene and were back in town at 8:42 p.m.

At 8:50 p.m., a second page came over the airwaves for the north SAR team. This time, nine individuals were reported stranded on Big Horn Lake one mile south of Horseshoe Bend.


The stranded boaters had sent a text message to a friend, who then called the Big Horn County Sheriff’s Dept. The message was immediately relayed to the north SAR squad.


The team was on their way by 9:10 and had a boat in the water by 9:50 p.m. Allred said he was unable to contact the National Park Service, but Jim Minchow was also on the way with another boat to use in the search.


While the SAR boat began to search over the dark water, a second team drove a truck up by the red cliffs and parked. SAR members walked around the rim looking and listening for any sign of the boaters. They began to hear voices and eventually were beckoned by the flash of a camera cell phone being held by one of the boaters. The SAR boat then made contact and towed the other boat to the dock.


It turns out that some of the people involved were from the same group that was reported lost while hiking near Devil’s Canyon last Sunday, Aug. 31. The group, consisting of two chaperones and seven 15 to 17 year-old males, was reportedly from the Heart Mountain Group Home. Last week while hiking near the canyon/lake, members of the group got the idea for a boating outing.


They were hungry and cold (some wearing only shorts), Allred said, but no one was injured. The team gave them blankets and a medical evaluation before clearing the scene.